Who Took Bets?

Those of you who know me would have made out like bandits if you had placed your bets on time. Lol Of course this was going to happen!!!

Well, not exactly this! Of  course, this is NOT where it was supposed to happen but it was as far as I could get this cutie. And, I figured I had an open window, several lights and an electrical plug. I was determined to get some of that black paint stripped down. And, the saddest part is that I don't think it's going to be all that difficult except that my hand sander is relatively old and uses paper that is no longer available so, over the years I have jerry-rigged other paper to try to make it fit and stay in place. But, my other projects have been small. This one is larger and needs heavier grit paper. It takes FOREVER to get the paper hooked in place and then it may work for a minute or two before it flies off!

My gut is telling me that a sander that actually works would make this job fairly easy and it would look so much more like what I want but I am just not up for heading out again today to find one so...I hope I don't have any unexpected company in the next day as getting in the front door is not all that welcoming but I am not about to drag this thing anywhere again...at least for awhile. Lol

After I left you yesterday I headed out and made a big pot of lentil-barley soup-I think I was motivated by our beautiful autumn temperatures that finally arrived- and then still had some time to kill so I grabbed the witch image I had printed. I just did it the usual way-on canvas with water ripped edges.

 And then, of course, I distressed the edges.

I really didn't know where she was going to go so I just put her here...and there she still is. Guess I had better go see if I can't find her a better place. Lol

Sure wish I could be showing you the finished cupboard all nestled back in its home looking pretty but, that isn't going to happen today so that's it for me.

I ran to get my flu and covid shots this morning and somehow decided I had better go ahead and get the shingles shot that I had to put off because of a shortage of the second shot for awhile. The tech warned me about the shingles shot causing some discomfort and advised that I shouldn't baby my arm but use it as much as I could. I'm guessing dragging that cupboard out to the living room may have helped because except for this reminder, I have no clue that I had three shots earlier today.

I'll let you know what happens next. I know you'll be on the edge of your seats until you see how the cupboard turns out. Lol Stay safe and stay tuned.

Mixed Signals

 I finally got enough caught up around the house that I figured I could take a day and get out to some stores to see what I have been missing. This is definitely my favorite time of year and I really haven't been able to just stroll the aisles of some of my favorite stores...not that I NEED anything but, a girl has gotta keep up with the times, right?

In any case, not counting food and essentials like batteries, Halloween candles, etc., this is what the sunroom table looks like right now...an embarrassment of Christmas on a Halloween table.

I always say that for the most part, I am a traditionalist when it come to decorating. And maybe never more so than for Christmas. While I think the grinch, gingerbread men, candy canes, snowmen, etc. are cute for decor, I tend to only use them as a bit of a pop instead of an entire room scheme.

I am a sucker for just greenery with pops of red and of course, my vintage Santas. In the "old days", I used to order fresh greenery from a farm in N.C.-I think-. That was when it couldn't be found locally. Then when places like Lowes, Home Depot or the tree lots started carrying it locally, I would buy it there. But, alas, the last few years the greenery available hasn't been pretty and I found myself scrambling to find things I could use so this year I decided to hedge my bet. There is a new greenery out that doesn't look half bad-if you can find it. I actually couldn't find "the" one-although, I will admit, I only tries 3 places and then settled for what I did find. 

I bought a garland a few weeks ago and after opening it and fluffing a bit, I really liked what I saw so I bought another one of those. I also bought a matching wreath. I always put a fresh wreath on my front door. If I can find a nice, full one this year I still will and I will use the faux on a table with a lantern, candle or whatever in the middle. Then I bought 5 small spruce picks that look real, 2 spruce candle rings, and holly candle ring, some really inexpensive greenery garland to wrap the wire on the branches on my faux tree and that green sort of mercury glass tree. I think that might be pretty with some fairy light nestled inside. And then, there is that lonely autumn item-a small wood pumpkin shaped dough bowl that will come out for Thanksgiving.

It looks like quite a haul but most all of it came from HL and was on sale or Walmart and was inexpensive. This is always when I start to convince myself that I should go straight from Halloween decor to Christmas-the greenery just makes me so happy. Of course I will have to be sure to use lots of pine candles, wall plugs, sprays, etc. because I definitely miss the "smell" of Christmas without the real stuff but I have accepted my new reality and I will survive.

I'm home today with every window in the house open and loving every minute of this beautiful-FINALLY here-autumn. weather. I'm catching up on some things I've put off and next is one of the guest bedrooms.

This room was painted this color to go with the gorgeous designer bedding that matched the curtains. It WAS absolutely beautiful and I loved it but it was SO HEAVY that it was almost impossible for me to maneuver when I had to change the sheets and make the bed and I complained about it so often that daughter #3 brought over this duvet cover and shams and told me to give them a try.

They weren't my favorite but they were so much easier for me to deal with and, they kind of went with the curtains and pillows left from the other set in a kind of "not matchy" sort of way-which said daughter-who is an interior designer-keeps telling me is all the rage-no matchy-matchy any more! Lol

But, I am kind of over this wall color and started talking about painting it-which no one should have taken seriously since I still haven't painted the sunroom ceiling and I've had the paint for well over a year already but, I digress. Lol

The same daughter is trying to tell me these colors are all coming back into vogue so the room color shouldn't change. And so, she brought me this bedding that she had in her warehouse.

 Honestly, I couldn't see how I could possibly use white and gray bedding with a goldish color bed skirt, red walls, some walnut furniture, some black, some painted coral and cream???? But, she suggested that I change the material insert that I have behind the doors on the pie safe so that is what I am going to try now.

So, a number of hours have passed since I was last here. In that time I think I have now opened up an "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" can of worms. I got the old fabric off and the new put in but, I think there are even more things that I don't like now.

The fabric panels in the cupboard are the same color as the chair cushion but because they're up against the black of the cupboard, I think they read even a starker white than the bedspread. And, now the black of the cupboard is REALLY bothering me...so much so that I've been shopping the house to see if there is another piece of furniture I might move in there.

Of course, I could try to strip the black paint off of that cabinet and stain it again but that would definitely require me taking the fabric I just put on off again and I will tell you, that was a much harder job this time than when I first did it because this time I had to remove the old ones and both my screw driver that I was using to pry up the staples and my pliers which I was using to pull them the rest of the way out are, apparently, magnetic on the tips. That is great when you want to stabilize a screw but it made getting the small staples off of the tips twice as hard...taking twice as long. And I'm thinking I used thinner staples the first time. All I have now are industrial size because I've been using them to reattach the lattice on my fence so they are big and just difficult to get where and how I wanted them...so, consequently why I won't be in a hurry to redo it.

And, I really don't like those curtains and pillows with the bedding which would then mean I would probably need new art...and so you see...thankfully my daughter will be here on Friday so I'm going to pick her brain and see what she thinks-after all, that's why she gets the big bucks. Lol

Here's how we started...

...and what it looks like now...

There is one ray of light...as I was moving some things around to have room to put the stapler, pliers, etc. close by as I worked, I did this. And, I actually now have an empty shelf. This is almost unheard of in my house so I'm excited. I will bet it doesn't stay empty long. Lol Note: that color inside is what the outside used to be and what I wish I had back again!

It was right about at this point that grandson #2 appeared. I love it when they show up for a visit but, those are usually announced. Since this one wasn't, I figured he might need something and I was right. He now needs two new pair of uniform shorts hemmed. Lol I'll just add it to my list. Lol!!

Me being me, I have gone into that room so many times since I did this to see if I would change my mind or at least begin to warm to it...but I haven.t. And so, I took in some sand paper and just gave it a little try and, even if I can't get all of the black paint off, I think I will still like it better. Of course, it will be a mess and can not be done on the light carpet in that room so, it will be a project. But you know, I LOVE a project. I'll let you know.

I'm off to get my flu shot tomorrow but maybe I can get sanding by afternoon! Stay safe and stay tuned.

Getting Back to Normal

 Things are slowly getting back to normal. I think I finally have all the things in the yard back where they belong and I have picked up as much of the debris as I can. I also realized just how many things I have on timers in my house and that they all need to be reset before they will work again...not to mention that I have some kind of a mental block when it comes to understanding just how to work those things. Luckily my irrigation guy was set to come today for my autumn check-up or there would have been no sprinklers going off around here for awhile. Lol  I was behind on a lot of chores but I am slowly catching up on those as well so I thought this might be a good time to move into the dining room. I had grandiose plans for changing up this room this year. The problem was that I knew I wanted to change it but I didn't know to what. And so, with the interruptions of Helene, there was just no time to figure it out...maybe next year?

I did bring the "pumpkin man" back out this year...he hasn't made an appearance for awhile and I just felt like it was time for him to return. I actually thought I might hang him from the ceiling above the coffee table in the living room until I realized that he is not attractive when viewed from the back and there would be no way to hide that in the living room. I have so many fond memories of my two grandsons running back and forth through this when they were so much younger...who am I kidding? They'd probably still do it today. Lol

So that is the dining room for this year. I have a list of things I wanted to do today but, as I was perusing Pinterest, I happened upon a few water color pictures that caught my eye. For some reason, I am attracted to water color. I have tried my hand at it a few times but I wasn't very good so when I see something that someone else has done, I am usually impressed. I printed out these two pictures and am thinking I may try my hand at possibly just decoupaging them onto canvases today. We'll see where the day goes.

Stay safe and stay tuned.

Good-bye Milton!

 Wow! This was a scary one! Once again, my home town was lucky in that we didn't get anywhere near the hit that other parts of Florida received! The images are heart wrenching and, as with Helene, lives have been lost. Milton broke records in ways no one expected and many, many people will have many months, if not years ahead of them to try to rebuild!

I must give props to my city's debris pick-up people. Helene wasn't picked up immediately but when they saw that we were going to get hit with Milton, they actually had pick-ups last Sunday. And that was probably a good thing because it didn't take long to get the streets filled with the debris from Milton. I have already had the pick-up of one load and this is there waiting for the next crew to come through.

I have spent a good bit of my time since I got home getting the yard back into shape. I have picked up almost everything of any size and gotten all of the bird feeders, bird houses and other hanging things back to hanging. I got the fountains cleaned and back up and running as well as the pool but I still can't figure out how to reset the timer on my irrigation system...waiting for my grandson to bail me out. Lol

I've trimmed off the branches that got blown askew and I begrudgingly got all of the Halloween decorations put back up. I say begrudgingly because I wonder if I actually needed to take them all down in the first place. When my daughter was driving me home we took a ride through her neighborhood to see the damage and there were houses with those HUGE TALL skeletons still sitting where they were-of course, there was also a house with a big tree through its roof so I guess it was better to be safe than sorry.

I thought I would include another room in my house in this blog but I am tired and ready to call it a day so I will try to get back soon.

Just know that even though others in my family did get hit harder and have more significant damage to their homes, we are all safe and that is all that really matters. Stay safe and stay tuned,

Here We Go AGAIN!!!

So, my outside Halloween decorations have been up for less than three days and it looks like they will be coming down soon! Either I take them down or "Milton" might. Yes, we have another hurricane coming to Florida and this one looks to be going straight across the state. Of course, it is still just a bit too early to tell exactly where it will come in but even if it deviates a bit, my county is expecting a lot of wind and with that probably power outages. Putting up those heavy decorations was rough this year so I am really tempted to wait until I know it is for sure going to be really windy here but, we also have predictions for lots of heavy rain for all of the days leading up to landfall so I probably should do it before it gets really wet out there!

In any case, I need some distraction from all of the predictions coming this way so why don't we go into the kitchen while I'm here?

I still love my little jack-o-lantern pot that I found many years ago at my Hallmark Store. I really miss that store-they had so many fun holiday decorations that you couldn't find anywhere else!

 

I brought this witch back to the party. My youngest grand daughter just loves her because she is sound activated and starts cackling and lighting up every time there is a noise in the kitchen. I stopped putting her out a few years ago in one of my "simplify" attempts and just didn't bring her back. But then the other day as I was decorating I saw her at the bottom of a Rubbermaid and decided it was time for her to make a reappearance! Presley will be so excited!

So that is the kitchen for this year. I guess I'll go check the weather once again. My checking it every five minutes probably won't have any effect on its changing for the better but.... Stay safe and stay tuned.

Another One of "Those" Days

 So, after five days of blood, sweat and almost tears-aka Halloween decorating-I decided to give myself the day off. Since it's Friday, that makes it an even better day. I knew I wasn't going to do anything I didn't want to do so that sure limited my to-do list. Lol But, I'm not one to just sit around all day either so I went looking for any little thing I have been thinking about that I now had the time for. The two things I've come up with so far are really a stretch but they make me happy. 

The first involves one of the velvet pumpkins that I made many, many years ago. They were all the rage back then and I wanted to make some in every color. The only problem was that I live in a relatively small city and velvet was not easy to come by back then. I thought I was lucky to find what I did-and, this was before the age of shopping on Amazon.

I made them in gold, brown, evergreen, beige and orange-bright orange. And, of course, I made more orange than the other colors. I have used them in many different ways over the years but that bright orange has always bothered me. Then, I happened upon a post on Pinterest that had beautiful velvet pumpkins to buy and there it was! Just the prettiest rusty kind of orange that I wanted. And so, I decided to try giving just one of my orange pumpkins a coffee bath. I chose one the size that I had multiples of just in case something went wrong. But, it did exactly what I wanted...it toned it down just enough. Since I am not using the velvet pumpkins in my Halloween decor, I just did the one but if they come back out for Thanksgiving I will be setting up an assembly line. 

In these pictures the change is subtle but in person it is perfect! It is just a richer orange!

And then as I was putting a small ceramic cauldron onto the shelf, I realized that I don't really use it as a serving piece-although it would be perfect for a dip-because I have so many other things I use. And then it hit me! Why not swap out the little vintage witch that I did in a $Tree cauldron for this one? This would definitely give the piece more presence and I thought it might appear more permanent than the little plastic one-and I was right.

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

I don't know why that makes me so happy but it does! So that's it. I think I will now give myself permission to sit down, put my feet up and watch a movie! Stay safe and stay tuned.

Holy Heat Batman!!!

 So today was THE day! I promised myself...and I told you all yesterday so I couldn't go back on my word. But, I don't think it has ever taken me so long to finish a cup of coffee because I said to myself "you'll get started as soon as you finish this coffee". The job doesn't get harder but for some reason (lol) it takes me longer and longer every year. I know the real reason-again, lol-but this year I am also blaming the heat! It is still SOOOO HOT out there! It took me 2 1/2 hours this time but I am done. That being said, this might be the last year for the trellis. Three of the cross braces are broken and I have tried to jerry rig them before and it's not working so, unless I can come up with a better idea, it may be time to lay it to rest. And then there is this:

The garland just sheds and sheds as I am putting it up-don't know how many years it has left either. I will take some more pictures when the sun isn't shining at the camera but for now, this is where we are...and I am still alive.

I always get a little melancholy when I look at that trellis because for years and years I took pictures of my grand children in witch hats under that thing. It started with one and went all the way up to seven and still we were good. Until one day we weren't because we realized that they had all grown so much that even if we doubled our row they all still weren't going to fit under there and we had to move out by the sign. I truly can't believe where time goes...and it goes much too quickly!!

And I realized that I didn't show you a good picture of where my new raven ended up. I absolutely LOVE him here. It is like he was just made for this spot. He sits on there perfectly. I've always had a raven here but it has always been one of those little inexpensive ones that I bought at Michaels...and I always had the hardest time finding a way to wire his feet in place where he wouldn't keep falling over. This guy is just perfect!! Meant to be!!! Serendipity!!!

So with that, I am officially finished with the decorating...guess I had better get going on moving autumn back into the garage...and in closets...and under beds...well, you know. Stay safe and stay tuned.